Can Delivery Robots Solve Last-Mile Logistics Issues?

Serve Robotics CEO Ali Kashani envisions autonomous delivery robots transforming urban logistics by optimizing the pickup and delivery of food and other products to lower the cost of last-mile delivery for businesses.

This year, it is planning to deploy 2,000 Uber Eats delivery robots — further expanding in Los Angeles and looking to deploy in Dallas and other cities. Serve was spun out of Uber a year ago, after Uber acquired Postmates in 2020. Serve had been part of Postmates. Last year, the company announced a partnership with Uber Eats and Shake Shack to deliver in Los Angeles.

Serve Robotics’ delivery bots currently traverse several Los Angeles neighborhoods, rolling on sidewalks to pick up food orders from 900 restaurants. They travel within a 2-mile radius — or up to 6 miles if handing off orders to a drone.

Last October, the company partnered with Wing, a drone delivery company, to create a robot-to-drone system for deliveries. Serve’s bot will pick up food at the restaurant curbside, deliver it to an “autoloader” for a drone that will fly the order to customers as far as 6 miles away — all within 30 minutes.

According to PYMNTS Intelligence data, consumers most likely to try robotic delivery are millennials and Gen Zs and those earning more than $100,000 a year.

More Uses Than Takeout Delivery

But Kashani sees the future of delivery bots handling more than food. “There are a lot of things you can deliver,” he told PYMNTS. “Imagine medications, pharmacy [items], parcels, groceries.”

He also envisions offering “reverse logistics” services, using the delivery bots to return products for customers. Kashani added that delivery robots can be used for local commerce as well: They can pick up clothing or shoes from local stores and bring them to customers to try them on. Shoppers keep the ones they want while putting the others back in the bot to return.

“There’s a lot of other things we can do with these robots once they’re out there,” Kashani said. “They’re making the cost of last mile substantially lowered.”

“Last mile” refers to the most costly, final stretch of delivering to each customer’s home or business rather than a warehouse or distribution center.

Kashani said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has publicly disclosed that it costs less to use Serve’s delivery robots than its human couriers. However, each bot is only delivering one order at a time because the food needs to get to the customer quickly. But multiple orders are possible, he said.

Founded in 2017 as a unit within Postmates, Serve has since grown into the largest provider in its field. In April 2024, it went public on Nasdaq.

Bots Take no Tips, but 1 Gets Kidnapped

Serve’s delivery bots form an autonomous, connected logistics ecosystem on the sidewalks of Los Angeles. Each morning, the bots leave their city depots and position themselves near busy parts of town that are full of restaurants.

“The robots leave their home in the morning, they go to work, they stay out all day, and they come home at night,” Kashani said. “While they’re out, they can accept jobs from Uber or other partners when they’re available.”

When they get an order, the bots head for the restaurant, where a server puts the food in the bot. The robot then goes to the customer’s home or office to deliver the food. The average delivery time is 18 minutes.

Customers can track the robot’s journey on an app. They get a notification when the robot arrives and press a button to unlock the bot to get the food. “It’s really straightforward. You don’t need any onboarding,” Kashani said. “You can just walk to a robot and operate it.”

Beyond just convenience, robots provide a more reliable delivery experience than human couriers, making fewer errors and ensuring that food remains untouched from restaurant to doorstep, Kashani said.

Asked if anyone had ever tried to steal the robot, Kashani said it happened once but the bot got away. Two people picked up the robot and put it in their truck, but the bot jumped off and went back to its depot.

“I posted the video footage [on Twitter, now X] from the robot’s perspective” of an attempted kidnapping, Kashani added.

Serve’s Delivery Bots Match Waymo, Beat Tesla

Serve Robotics said its delivery bots have achieved Level 4 autonomy. That means they can operate on their own — only in designated areas — without human assistance, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The levels range from zero (no autonomy) to 5 (full autonomy in all areas under all conditions).

The robotaxis of Google’s Waymo have reached Level 4. In contrast, Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) feature sits at Level 2, where the system does provide assistance but the driver remains fully responsible for driving.

Both Serve and Waymo use LiDAR, a remote sensing technology whose laser pulses measure distances to create high-resolution, 3D maps of environments. Tesla opted for a cameras-and-neural networks system.

Kashani said the delivery robots are “safer” than vehicles because unlike cars, these don’t weigh 2 tons and don’t move at 30 to 60 miles per hour. The bots “have 3,000 times less kinetic energy than a car … so even if they come into contact with someone, the most likely scenario is [the people] keep walking.”

He said the bots also can stop at any time when they need help, such as when they encounter construction and seek new instructions on what to do. A Serve Robotics employee will remotely help them. Kashani added that for now, Serve does use people to ensure that the bots cross intersections safely.

While the bots will get more advanced over time, Kashani nevertheless believes that human workers will always be needed in the system. “I don’t think it’s ever going to be robots taking over the whole thing. It’s always going to be complementary” to human efforts, he said.

Meanwhile, as Serve scales, lower delivery costs will expand the market, leading to more jobs overall, Kashani said.